No meat? Don’t want biryani, say Mewat locals

NUH (MEWAT): “Biryani hai?” (Do you have biryani?)

NUH (MEWAT): “Biryani hai?” (Do you have biryani?)

HT Image

“Haan, lekin murge ka,” (Yes, but only chicken)

“Nahi chahiye,” (Don’t need it then)

This is how conversations go at Nuh Chowk in Mewat district, around 50km from Gurgaon, these days, ever since the district administration decided to launch a crackdown on biryani sellers.

Mewat district administration officials have been collecting samples of biryani from shopkeepers and vendors of Nuh since Monday, after receiving complaints that beef was being added to the dish.

On Friday, HT spent time talking to the biryani sellers who said business had taken a hit ever since the authorities clamped down.

Mohammad Akbar, for example, lost three customers in the 25 minutes the HT team spent with him. He claimed more than 30 people used to sell biryani on the roadsides of Nuh till Monday, half of whom had stopped ever since the crackdown started.

Akbar, who has been selling biryani for the last 12 years, said this was the first time he had faced such a situation. “I, like most others, have stopped selling gosht biryani. Officers came, photographed, video-graphed and collected samples of our food even on Wednesday,” he said.

Gosht normally is defined as red meat (beef, lamb, or mutton) and sometimes buffalo meat.

Other areas of Mewat, like Mundaka village in Ferozpur Jhirka, too have been facing with a similar situation.

The authorities picked up samples of biryani from Mundaka earlier this month, tested them at Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Hisar, and reportedly found beef in the dish.

Mohammad Shahid, a biryani seller in Nuh market, claimed that sales had dipped by as much as 50% ever since officials started collecting samples. “See for yourself, I am selling chicken biryani only,” he said, while removing the cover of his large aluminium vessel.

“I used to sell out my stock by 12pm earlier. Now, I have to wait till the evening. We have been preparing less also to avoid wastage,” added Shahid.

Akbar claimed that the drop in sales was primarily because people in the region loved gosht biriyani. “Gosht biryani costs Rs 100 a kilo. A kilogram of chicken biryani costs Rs 120 per kg. It is not the price, but the taste that makes a difference,” claimed Akbar. Biryani sellers have even stopped using buffalo meat and mutton fearing a backlash.

A biryani-seller, who had set up shop near Akbar’s stall, accepted that they had been using beef in the dish till Monday.

“Cow meat was supplied to us from the interior parts of Mewat. But that has stopped ever since the crackdown was launched by DIG Bharti Arora (who is also the nodal officer of Haryana Police’s cow protection task force),” the man said without wishing to be identified.

Arora told HT that they didn’t want to stop the sale of biryani altogether and the police were merely complying with the state government’s directions under Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gau Samvardhan Act, 2015.